April 6, 2021 3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Marketing in today’s world has to be a collaborative effort. Unlike the strategies of the bygone days, marketing is no longer a standalone, customer-facing method to promote your manufacturing unit. Marketing now invites all departments and sets them on a route to achieve short and long term goals.

To make things more difficult, some people have different definitions of the same roles, such as growth hacking and performance marketing. These terms have been described differently in the context of their inputs and outputs. The inputs are resources and routes that are taken in order to receive the outputs expected. When the planning goes wrong, the rest of the road can be extremely confusing and the resources will most likely burnout.

There are a variety of decisions that lead to the unproductive outcomes and startup failures. The following three strategies are crucial to making the most of you and your marketing team’s time.

1. Delivering the value

Customers today are becoming aware of tools that give them the freedom to compare their options. Google is just a starting point — the online comparison websites for insurance, credit cards, small products and more are helpful to opt out of less valuable offerings in the market.

Your value is the first step in your success. All departments should know your value, especially the marketing team spreading the word across all target audiences. This value also should be aligned with the customers’ goals, and not the personal wishes of founders.

Related: Don’t Just Sell Yourself, Communicate Your Value: 6 Valuable Tips

2. Clear communication

Usually, marketing teams get stuck because they didn’t receive enough guidelines. Concise, practical and clear communication is the fundamental principle to the success of a marketing project. The communication you give your team is forwarded to the customer, so consider what you’re briefing them about.

But what should you communicate exactly? You should at least be communicating the team’s budget, and even the division of that budget for different channels if you want to do that. You should also communicate your goals so you can have a collaborated vision, and not just ask your team to acquire users. These goals have to follow a pattern and logical viewpoint that are explainable.

Related: 14 Proven Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills

3. Balance input with output

You can’t pour more water into the glass when it’s completely full. When you’re scaling your output, your input must follow that pattern. To make it a harmonious structure, you should balance both sides of the equation.

In my experience, not balancing resources and expectations can result in disaster. Usually, a business owner hires a single marketer and puts the complete burden on their shoulders to deliver a great number of leads that, if not achieved, can become a headache for the entrepreneur. Marketing teams should make the most of their effort with new digital tools that are led by analytics. If you’re running a business without analytics for practical use, you aren’t making the most of it.

Without knowing the consequences, efforts, outcomes and real key performance indicators in the marketing process, entrepreneurs run the risk of hiring someone who burns their time and money. Follow these three marketing practices, and you’ll make the most of your team.

Related article: 5 Tips for Hiring an All-Star Marketing Team